Note: The Overlook is closed to the public during construction.Learn More ›

Opening in summer 2019, the Robert W. Wilson Overlook will introduce an ascending garden shaped by communal gathering spaces that overlook the iconic Cherry Esplanade. The curvilinear path, cast stone walls, and integrated benches and lighting will lead visitors through a series of framed views that reveal the magic of the Garden while enhancing circulation in one of its most highly visited areas.

This new, accessible feature was designed by the multidisciplinary architecture firm Weiss/Manfredi and takes its cues from the adjacent Visitor Center, an earlier partnership between Weiss/Manfredi and Brooklyn Botanic Garden that has won more than 20 design awards. The Overlook’s new landscape will be defined by flowering crape-myrtle trees and immersive plantings of ornamental grasses and herbaceous perennials.

Highlights

Rendering of Robert W. Wilson Overlook opening in 2019. Courtesy of Weiss/Manfredi.

Rendering of Robert W. Wilson Overlook opening in 2019. Courtesy of Weiss/Manfredi.

Rendering of Robert W. Wilson Overlook opening in 2019. Courtesy of Weiss/Manfredi.

Garden Layout

Axonometric view of the new Overlook. Illustration by Weiss/Manfredi.

The Overlook landscape will feature an expanded collection of flowering crape-myrtle trees, which flourish beautifully at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and a four-season planting scheme of ornamental grasses and herbaceous perennials.

As a counterpoint to the Garden’s spring cherry blossom display, the crape-myrtles will offer a spectacular floral show of whites and pinks in late summer, vibrant foliage in the autumn, and intricately textured and patterned exfoliating bark for winter interest. The grasses and perennials will form a robust, resilient ecosystem that will evolve over time, inviting a diversity of insect life and stabilizing the soil to prevent erosion.